It is an honor to have Brad with us this morning. He is our pastor, and it just felt right to me.
He's going to be speaking this morning, and then he's going to close the meetings next Sunday morning.
It felt right to me. It felt like God wants him here at the beginning and the end.
And the thing that goes through me is we are living in a society that has very little use for authority.
And everything God does is in authority. Everything He does flows in authority.
He is our pastor. He is our authority. Scripturally, if we will honor authority and let authority speak
into our life, our life living for God will go much better than if we just lone ranger it,
and we're just going to do our own thing, and well, that's great. But that is the culture we're living in.
Nobody wants to be under anybody's authority. We're going to do our own thing, our own way.
That is totally demonic in origin. It's not God. God flows in authority.
And there's times that, you know, Mary and I have called Brad, and I'm convinced we don't hear the answer
because God wants to see if we're still submissive to authority. And He'll say something simple,
well, just do this. And it's like, okay, I could have thought of that, but I didn't.
Why? I think God's testing our heart sometimes. Saying, do you really have someone over you
who is in authority? Then submit to it and let them speak into your life. And that's
what I'm looking forward to this morning. I don't know, I have no idea what He's speaking on.
But as our pastor, if He steps on our toes, just say amen. Stick them back out, let them step on them again.
Because He's the one responsible over us. We're accountable to Him. So Brad, awesome to have you.
It's your turn.
Well, I just want to say that I'm extremely honored and humbled at the same time to know you guys
and to be a part of this church. And you know, some people are different.
You know, there's people out there that, I mean, they just think they're the greatest thing in the world
and if God used them, their attitude kind of is, yeah, I mean, I can understand why God would use me
because I'm so great. But that's just not me. I just don't work that way. I mean, I'm like just amazed
that God would even speak to me and get to know me. And that's just me. Not everybody's that way.
But so it really is. It really is an honor to be here. And I am humbled by it.
And I do believe that I have something from the Lord to share with you.
And because Vern had contacted me quite a while ago about the meetings and in the moment that he contacted me,
it was just like, you know, a switch turned on in my heart and I knew exactly that this is what I'm supposed to share.
And it's really something that I just said earlier here to Pastor is that it's kind of a little bit out of my wheelhouse
as far as teaching goes. Not that I don't know anything about it or, you know, have experience in it,
but I just don't normally teach this way. And so it's a step of faith for me, but I believe that it's what God wants.
I really do. There's no question that we are in what I like to say the last of the last days.
And if you've been paying any kind of attention whatsoever, I mean, we're witnessing almost everything that the Bible declares will happen in the end of the age.
Almost everything. And right along with that, we also are witnessing the forces of evil.
They're doing everything they can to promote the works of darkness.
But for us as the followers of the Lord and the Church of Jesus Christ, it's important that the plans and purposes of God come to pass.
The harvest needs to be reaped. The glory of God must fill the earth.
Amen. Yes. And I believe it will.
And so one of the things that Pastor had communicated to me was that kind of the theme, and I don't know if everyone's really going to go this way or not,
but it was kind of like, okay, you know, what does a church in America need? You know, kind of where do we go from here?
And I believe there's one thing, and I'll say it's not the only thing, but I believe there's one thing or one activity maybe would be a better way to say it.
I believe there's one activity that is going to be absolutely necessary if we're going to see the things come to pass that we want to see come to pass.
And it's very simply this. The followers of the Lord must be skilled prayers.
Must be skilled prayers. And I'm not talking just about saying a simple prayer of request or thanksgiving. I'm not just talking about speaking in tongues.
I'm talking about working together with the Holy Spirit in prayer. And there is a difference.
And so I'm going to examine that some. And obviously we could not totally exhaust the subject, but I'm going to do my best to try and communicate to you some of the things that the Lord put on my heart.
And some of the things that I have witnessed and been a part of through the years.
It's interesting to me anyway is that I'm now 72 years old. A lot of you are younger than me and some of you are older than me.
But I've been around for a while now. And when you get older, you're not as cool as you used to be.
That's just kind of reality. And you don't dress, you know, hip and all this sort of stuff. And you got gray hair and wrinkles.
And, you know, the old body just doesn't quite do what it used to do. You think it can.
But I also realize this, that I've witnessed some things and seen some things that a lot of the younger people have no idea about.
And if some of us that are more experienced in our walk with God and been walking with Him for a while, if we fail to teach these things,
they can be lost. Truths can be lost for the next generation. And what I want to share with you this morning concerning prayer,
I honestly see that this truth is being lost. And so I'm going to do my best to try and communicate some things to you about prayer
that I believe is absolutely necessary for this day and hour. And something that if some of us don't start teaching on it,
it will be just lost totally. So that's where we're going. Let's see where we end up.
But I want to begin with the Scripture. This is in James chapter 5. James chapter 5 verse 16. James chapter 5 verse 16.
And it says, Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.
And then it says this, a very interesting statement. It says, The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
A simple little statement. The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. And I'm sure we've read that, we've heard that.
But it's interesting that the word back in the original language, which really they use a couple of words to describe it,
but effective fervent, but the word in the original language actually means this. Now listen to this.
It means to be operative or at work. And then it said this, to put forth power.
So he basically says the prayer that is work is what makes power available. I like to say it this way.
And it's kind of a big word, but I think we all understand what it means. The laborious prayer is what actually puts forth power.
Again, not just the simple prayer. Now we understand that we can pray, we can communicate with God.
We understand that I can ask Him for things, so forth. We understand all that.
But if we're really going to work with the Holy Ghost and produce some power that's going to be world changing,
then it's going to take a different kind of prayer. And this kind of prayer involves work.
It's not just a simple little thing that says, well, you know, we love you God, you got to do something.
Help us, send your power. See, that's not going to cut it.
The Amplified Bible says it this way. It says the earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer of a righteous man
makes tremendous power available, dynamic, and it's working.
Now, to be honest, if we want to even see an example today of how this laborious prayer is working,
one of the things that's been happening in recent times is that the church has been praying very diligently,
really working at prayer so that corruption will be exposed.
And boy, is it being exposed.
But that's happening because the church has taken that on.
It's not just happening because someone, well, you know, Lord, you got to do something.
I mean, things are so corrupt, you need to expose this.
No, there's people that are diligently praying.
They're working at it. And it's being exposed.
Now, you know, we're maybe not always happy what we see when it's exposed, but it is being exposed.
All right, so prayer has the potential to put forth just tremendous power, but it's a prayer that is work.
Now, this prayer is so powerful in the mouth of a believer that God actually gave us the Holy Spirit to help us.
Because that prayer is so powerful. That kind of prayer can change things.
But he gave us the Holy Spirit to help us out.
Now, I want to read another scripture. I'm just kind of getting started here.
I want to get you thinking in the right direction. Let's go to Romans chapter 8.
Romans chapter 8, and we'll pick it up here, verse 26 and then in verse 27.
Romans chapter 8, he says,
Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.
For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Now, he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Now, he speaks here of these groanings. These groanings are actually utterances that cannot be articulated.
Now, the Amplified of verse 26 says it this way.
It says, So too the Holy Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weaknesses.
For we do not know what to pray or what prayer to offer, nor how to offer it worthily as we ought.
But the Spirit himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance.
So, there is a place in prayer in which the Holy Spirit is helping us,
but it's a place in prayer where there actually is, as the Bible calls it,
these groanings, unspeakable yearnings, but it is the Holy Ghost working through us.
Now, I'll be honest with you that, and I'm sure, I mean, I can't speak for something that happened over a hundred years ago because I wasn't here.
But just in my time, there was a time in which God was really emphasizing this type of prayer.
But then it got a little off, which seems to happen with truce.
People, you know, their own reasoning gets in, different things start to happen, things get off a little bit.
I mean, we saw this with many areas. We saw it with prosperity. God emphasized prosperity at a point.
He does want to prosper us, but then people start getting their own thinkings mixed in.
All of a sudden, there were extremes that were out there. But see, people have a tendency when that happens this, then they just want to throw it all away.
And we saw this with this type of praying, is that it started, there started being some air that was entering in, and then people just said,
well, we can't have any of that anymore. And they just threw that whole thing out.
Well, it's going to be necessary that the church knows how to pray this way in this day and this hour.
I have, now I haven't recently, but in years past, I've done a lot of study about revivals because it just kind of piqued my interest.
And so I studied about past revivals. Every past revival, at least that I studied not, there were revivals in other parts of the world.
It's not just the United States and a few European countries. I mean, there's been revivals in China and Africa and all over.
But the ones that I studied, every single one took place because they were people praying this way.
You can read reports about it and different ones and it's very interesting.
You know, there's reports of prayers that they had prayed so much that they actually wore their floors from being on their knees,
praying in this one spot and actually wore the floor out, they prayed so much.
People would pray and those that would hear them praying in this way would think there's something wrong with them.
They think they were crazy. So there were air. There was, I should say, was air that entered in.
In fact, what we saw some is that we saw some, what I would say misguided individuals.
They would start pushing people to attend what they called groaning meetings.
We saw this.
And sadly it was nothing more than people just getting together and trying to conjure up some kind of groaning
that was supposed to be by the Spirit, but it was just the flesh.
And there was no anointing on it.
And so sadly, you know, it caused people to walk away from that truth.
And like I said, basically just throw the whole thing out.
And now I could go into many churches.
And I'm not saying it's that way here at all, but I could go into many churches.
And if they asked them anything about this type of praying, they would know nothing about it.
Because they just tossed it all out years ago.
But we're not going to get where we need to get without this type of praying.
See, the Holy Spirit will help believers to pray with groanings that cannot be articulated.
But that doesn't mean that we can announce some kind of meeting and saying,
well, we're going to have a groaning meeting and then exhort everyone to groan.
It doesn't work that way.
The Holy Spirit has to take hold with believers as they pray in the Spirit.
Otherwise, any type of these groanings are nothing more than just a fleshly display.
So, I was thinking of this when I was preparing some things.
I thought, well, I'm going to explore this today, but to be honest with you,
I explored at the risk of being misunderstood and even being persecuted for it.
But I believe that's what the Lord told me to do.
Because we need this kind of praying in the church.
All right, you can tell I'm just kind of...
I'm struggling a little bit here, but let's look at a scripture again.
This time, Isaiah 66.
Isaiah 66 and verse 8.
Now, I told the guys in the sound booth, I was just using these two,
and this one actually is the old King James Version.
Now, I'm going to switch back, but I want to read it first in the old King James Version.
This is in Isaiah 66, verse 8.
He says, Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day?
Or shall a nation be born at once?
For as soon as... Now, I pronounce it Zion.
I could be wrong in that, I've heard different pronunciations of it.
But just for me, let's go with that.
But anyway, for as soon as Zion prevailed, she brought forth her children.
So it speaks of a travail.
But then in the new King James Version of that same verse,
it says, Who has heard such a thing?
Who has seen such things?
Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day?
Or shall a nation be born at once?
It says, For as soon as Zion was in labor,
she gave birth to her children.
So in one translation that spoke of this travail,
here it talks about being in labor.
Now, we need to understand that Old Testament prophecies
often have multiple applications.
First, there's a natural one.
But then there's also a spiritual application.
So in this verse, we know that in the natural,
it's speaking about Israel becoming a sovereign nation.
Now, there's some, you know, question among Bible scholars that,
well, when did that exactly happen?
You know, some say back like in 1948 or whatever.
I don't know, but it is talking in the natural sense,
it's talking about Israel, that nation being birth,
becoming their own sovereign nation.
But when the Bible talks about Zion,
it's not always necessarily talking about Israel.
And I can prove that to you.
Because if we come on over here to Hebrews chapter 12,
Hebrews chapter 12, and I'm going to pick it up in verse 22.
Hebrews chapter 12 verse 22, he says,
but you've come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels
and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn
who are registered in heaven and to God the judge of all
to the spirits of just men made perfect to Jesus, the mediator,
so forth and so on.
Now notice here this phrase.
It says to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
that refers to us, the church.
And so under the new covenant in this sense,
when it refers to that they come to Mount Zion,
to the city of the living God,
to the general assembly of the church of the firstborn,
we see in the new covenant that the church is referred to as Zion.
So if we look at that, it actually brings them some more meaning
into Isaiah 66 verse 8, where it says,
for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.
When the church travails, she'll bring forth spiritual children.
But that is a prayer that involves labor.
Labor is work.
Huh?
Labor is work.
Now, the apostle Paul spoke of this over in Galatians chapter 4
of this travail, or labor.
Galatians chapter 4, look here in verse 19.
He says, my little children of whom I labor in birth again
until Christ is formed in you.
So he mentions here of a labor.
Some translations say he travailed in birth.
I think the original King James says it that way,
that he travailed in birth again until Christ be formed in them.
And so here's the apostle Paul referring to a labor or a travail.
And it had to do with prayer.
Now he implies here, of course, that he had actually travailed
in prayer for those so that they could be born again.
Because he says, I'm travailing again for you.
So that Christ can be formed in you.
So he's really implying that he had prayed or travailed
in this type of prayer for them to be born again.
Now he's travailing for them that they would actually grow up in Christ
and continue their spiritual walk.
You following me?
So we can very scripturally see that there is a type of prayer.
There's a groanings. There's a travail.
There's a labor in this type of prayer
that makes tremendous power available.
It can cause people to be born again.
It can cause people to grow up in Christ Jesus.
It can change things around the world
because it makes tremendous power available.
But it does involve work.
It's not just simply saying we know someone that's not saved them.
Oh Lord, just save them.
That's not the kind of prayer we're talking about.
This is a prayer that involves some work.
It's a travail.
Because the example that's given, it's like a woman bringing forth a child.
And in the natural, birthing a baby involves discomfort,
even pain.
It's labor. It's work.
You following me?
I'm not just talking over your head.
Am I?
All right.
See now,
if we're really going to have the lost saved to the degree
that we all want and that we all talk about,
this great harvest coming in around the world,
it's going to take prayers,
travailing in this type of prayer to bring in that kind of harvest.
Now, I'm not opposed to this,
but we do have to be a little careful because see,
churches will set up all kinds of programs trying to reach the lost.
And I'm not opposed to that.
Thank God they want to try and preach the gospel to people.
I'm all for it.
But they'll set up all kinds of programs to reach the lost.
And what can happen
is that people can just make a mental agreement
and never really, truly get saved.
Because you can put pressure on somebody
in trying to witness and share the gospel with them
and they'll go, well, I believe in Jesus
and they'll even pray a prayer with you.
But you don't see any transformation in their life.
Now, I can't judge someone's heart and don't want to.
And I'm not saying that someone won't get saved
just because they hear the gospel and believe it
and receive Jesus.
Certainly they can.
But there are people out there that have just decided that,
well, you know, I did this.
I mean, I tried the drugs and, you know,
and the alcohol and I tried.
Well, let's just try Jesus.
They may not even be saved
even though they prayed a prayer.
Because they just mentally agreed to something.
That doesn't get you saved.
But when the Holy Spirit takes hold together with someone
to intercede for the lost,
there's a mighty power that's made available
and it'll bring forth fruit.
People will be, if we could use this terminology,
people will be birthed into the kingdom
of God.
Because when the Holy Spirit takes hold together
with them to pray for the lost,
it makes tremendous power available
that changes things and at last it produces fruit
forever.
If you think about it,
children
are not born into a home without travail.
And the same way,
children are not born into the family of God
without travail and prayer.
But this spiritual travail that we're talking about,
these groanings,
does not occur
without the help of the Holy Spirit.
Any more
than someone can give birth to a child
if they're not pregnant.
They got to be pregnant first.
See, you can just decide that well
I'm just going to groan and travail and whatever else.
But the Holy Spirit never takes hold together with you.
You can travail all you want, nothing's going to happen.
It'd be like someone trying to give birth to a baby,
but they're not pregnant.
Because this type of prayer is you
working with the Holy Spirit.
It's the Holy Spirit taking together with you.
It's a different kind of prayer.
Amen.
But when we have genuine spiritual travail
it brings supernatural results.
And I'm convinced that
the closer we can pattern our prayer life
to the Word of God
we're going to get greater results.
Now
this type of prayer
is under the anointing, we could say.
Now
you can pray in tongues.
If you're born again filled with the Holy Spirit
you can pray in tongues whenever you choose.
You can communicate with God
you can pray in tongues whenever you choose.
But you should come to the place
where you can distinguish the difference
between praying in tongues
for your own personal edification
and actually interceding
for others as the Holy Spirit
takes hold together with you in prayer.
You should be able to distinguish the difference.
Amen.
I like to try and describe it like this.
See when you were born again
we know that the Spirit of God came to live inside of us
and then we got filled with the Holy Spirit
which gave us this ability to speak in this supernatural language.
Now
speaking in tongues
as you could say
the native language of the new kingdom that you're in
that's your language
because you were translated out of the kingdom of darkness
into the kingdom of his dear son.
So now in this new kingdom that you're in now
that you received Jesus and were filled with the Holy Spirit
he gave you a language.
It's the native language of the new kingdom that you're in.
And so
now you can communicate with God in this new language
and when you first start speaking in tongues
more than likely
I know it was certainly that way with me
more than likely
you weren't real fluid
in your new language.
You were like a baby
just learning to talk.
I know it was that way with me
and when I got filled with the Holy Spirit
I got two words.
I mean two words
but I was
I mean I believed it
I knew I'd received the Holy Spirit
and I just kept saying those two words
over and over and over and over again
this went on for days
I'd be driving in my car
two words
you know just over and over again
but the more that I did that
the more words started to come
and you think about
you know a baby that's just learning to speak
A lot of times they get one word, and it's usually either mama or dad. They start
somewhere, and then they learn to speak more words. And so we have this new
language now, and so when we first start out we may not be very fluent in it, but
the more that we speak in that language, the more fluent we become. But that
language, see, that we have is something we can use to speak to God anytime we
want. I don't need an anointing to do that. I can just speak. It's my, you could
say my native language to this kingdom of God. But see, then there's times when you
speak with tongues under the anointing, and that's different. During that time
tongues would just flow out of your spirit by the anointing of the Holy
Spirit within you. And all you do is just speak out the words. It almost seems
like you have nothing to do with it. Now you do because you yielded. But see,
sometimes when you pray just in tongues, you're just gonna decide that you're
gonna pray in tongues. You sometimes just got to make yourself do it. I'm
gonna pray in tongues. And what you're doing is you're just making yourself
speak. And that's cool. You can do that. But then there's times, see, like I said,
when the anointing comes on you to pray where the Holy Spirit takes hold
together with you. And at that point, see, then tongues will just begin to
flow out of you. And it almost seems like you don't even have nothing to do
with it. It just flows. And I know I've experienced that where times, I'm just,
it's like I'm listening to what's coming out of my mouth. And I'm, things, I'll say
certain things. That's interesting. And then it'll start to sound like
different things because it's, it's different tongues of men and angels.
And so it kind of sounds like it's some kind of Chinese language. And I'm
going, well, that's kind of interesting. But it's just flowing because there's an
anointing there where now the Holy Spirit has taken hold together with you. But
speaking with that anointing or we'd say by the anointing of the Spirit, even
where it comes to the place where it's not just these tongues, but it
proceeds into something else that even becomes a groaning, a travail, that kind
of experience in prayer. Very few believers have. Very few. Because you often
believers get filled with the Spirit and they speak in tongues, which is
their now new language they got for their kingdom. But they never develop any
further in that supernatural realm of the Spirit. They just stay there. They never
get any farther. But they need to start putting some effort into speaking in
tongues, I would say, long enough to get over into the realm where the Holy
Spirit takes hold together with you. Because it changes. It's not the same and
some of you have experienced that. But all of a sudden he takes hold together
with you and now there's an anointing there and now you're praying in a way
in which it's just flowing out of you and that kind of prayer the Bible
says makes tremendous power available. It'll change things. Now it's hard to, and
this is where I struggled a little bit. Like I said, it's not a topic I teach
a lot. Because it's hard to teach people this. Because if we can look at
it this way, how could I teach someone what it's like to give birth to a baby
in the natural? How could I do that? You have to experience it for yourself. Now
ladies that have children, will you understand it? And husbands think they
understand it and they don't. They try to understand it. I mean seriously
they do try and understand, but they don't. Because they've never really
experienced it. And how are you going to teach them what it's like? And it's
that way with this type of praying is that it's hard to teach it because you
got to experience it. That's the only way you begin to learn. But you, in
fact, have to be willing, if necessary, to pray long enough in tongues until
you get to that place where the Holy Spirit does take hold together with
you. And then you begin to understand and you begin to learn some things. Now
you can get together with other believers that understand this type of
prayer and pray with them. And that can help you to learn some
things. And because you see how they pray and it kind of helps you. So we're
not... We can do that. We can get together. But the other thing with
this type of praying is that the Bible actually frowns on praying this
way among those that are unlearned. It actually frowns on it. Let me
read. Let me find a scripture. First Corinthians chapter 14. First
Corinthians 14. We'll pick it up here in verse 16. It says, Otherwise, if you
bless with the Spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed?
Now some translations say unlearned. But the uninformed. How can they say
amen to your giving of thanks since he does not understand what you
say? For you indeed give thanks well, but the others not edified. So it speaks
about this place of the unlearned. There's been a lot of damage that's
been caused in the body of Christ by people praying this way in amongst a
large group where there's people that are just unlearned because they don't
understand. And that's why you certainly can't have a meeting and say,
okay, we're going to have a groaning meeting and y'all come and then this
grown. Well, it doesn't work that way. And so that makes it again, that makes
it difficult to teach because you can't really teach by example in a group
where there would be people there that just have no understanding of this
whatsoever. So you see the challenge. But yet at the same time, if we don't
have this type of praying in the church, we are going to fall short of what
God wants to do. And see in fear of the persuasion that God's just going
to do whatever he wants to do. And we as a church don't have much to do
with it. Well, and I'm here this morning to inform you that that's
not correct thinking. Because I can find all kinds of examples where God's
will did not come to pass was delayed because of men. Just think of one of the
most popular stories in the Bible, the children of Israel being delivered
from Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and they all
died. Was that God's will? No. Well, why didn't God just take him in anyway?
If that was his will, why didn't he just make it happen? No, because we have
something to do with it. And we can say, well, man, I believe that God wants
to bring in this great harvest and His glory wants to fill this earth. We
understand all that. But it's going to take us, now we can delay it. We
can cause things not to come to pass that should come to pass. Unless we
learn to pray this way. He needs us. Now, like I said before, that during
these times of prayer, it seems like you don't have much of anything to do
with it. Once you've reached that place where it takes hold together
with you, things just begin to flow. Things just begin to happen. But you
did have something to do with it in the beginning, because you chose to yield.
We have to understand that the Holy Spirit just doesn't take us over. It's
a matter of us yield to Him and His will, and then that stronger
anointing will come. The Holy Spirit is not going to come on you and
flow through you without your permission. Just not going to do that. But if you
yield to Him and give Him permission, then He'll actually give you that
stronger anointing to pray. And sometimes, when you're in that place of
prayer, and the Holy Spirit is taking hold together with you, you will,
because it is intercession, you're taking the place of another. Sometimes the person
that you're praying for, you can actually begin to feel some of their hurt, their
heartache. You can begin to feel that yourself, because you're standing in
the gap. You following me? I've heard stories people talk about how they've
been praying for someone with that loss, and then that the Holy Spirit
would come upon them in that way, and they begin to pray in this deeper realm of
prayer, and they started to feel like they were lost themselves. And so that
can happen. Sometimes you can be praying for a situation, maybe someone's in
need of healing, and you're praying for them. And the very thing that you're
praying that God would move in their life and help them, you start to
feel that same pain. But it's the Holy Spirit taking hold together with you, and
you're standing in the gap, you're that intercessor. But it's a supernatural
thing. And sadly so many people never experience those things. And sometimes
when you're praying for people in that deeper realm of prayer, you will
actually feel like you're in their presence, like you've been translated.
You didn't, you're still there, but it feels like you're there.
I remember one, it's, you know, kind of a real, I guess kind of a dramatic
experience with me, is that several years ago now my wife had a medical
emergency, and so they had to, we called the ambulance, they came, took her to
the local hospital, but then they needed to airlift her out to a different
hospital. And so they said, well we're going to airlifter, so they took, put
her in the helicopter, they took off, and then I had to drive in the car,
and it was about 65, 70 miles that I had to drive in the car.
Of course the helicopter got their way ahead of me, and they had done a whole
bunch of things already, they rushed her into surgery, different things, so in fact
I think she was coming out of surgery by the time I got there, they went that
fast. But anyway, so I'm driving down the interstate, and I'm praying, I mean
obviously, and I'm praying. And the Holy Spirit started taking hold
together with me, so it wasn't just me praying in what I knew how to pray, I mean
I can speak in tongues, and I can pray in English, I know certain things, what the
Word says, so I'm speaking what the Word says, and I'm praying in tongues, but
then the Holy Spirit just took hold together with me, and it changed, and
anointing came on me to pray. And so I'm praying, and all of a sudden I'm
driving down interstate 94, and all of a sudden I'm in the helicopter.
Now I wasn't translated there, I'm still driving my car.
Well I'm pretty sure I was. I guess I couldn't say that for sure, but I'm
pretty sure I was, okay, because it would have been quite the
sight if there was just a car going down 94 and nobody in it.
So I don't think that was going on, but see, because when you pray that
way, sometimes you'll be in their presence.
I've heard prayer people talk about how they prayed for the president,
and they'd find themselves in the oval office
in prayer. See there's no distance in the spirit,
but those are the kind of prayers that get things done.
They make tremendous power available, but it takes some work,
it takes some labor, and the church is going to have to be willing to do that.
But we do have to do things again correctly.
Like I said, part of the challenge in this
is that the Bible does warn us, you know, that we should not be doing these
sort of things in the presence of those that are on learned,
and so that makes it more challenging to teach,
but yet people got to learn.
And anytime we talk about things that are more of the supernatural realm,
you run the risk of people getting off.
You run the risk even as a preacher, you run the risk of people looking at you
and thinking, you know, something weird about you,
and they want to persecute you and whatever else.
But we have to learn to pray this way.
But it's going to involve some effort on our part,
because you're going to have to be willing to give yourself to times of prayer.
I believe with all my heart that God is calling us to a deeper realm of prayer
in this day and this hour.
And for me, just in my life, it's been confirmed to me over and over again
because of all the studies I've done about past revivals.
They did not happen just because someone said, well, Lord, send revival.
They happened because people were willing to give of their lives to pray.
And they labored in prayer.
And the Holy Spirit took hold together with them.
And things began to happen.
And we can find stories.
You look at it in the Bible, remember the situation, the time that Peter was in prison,
and they're in the book of Acts, and then it says that there were believers,
there was the church, they prayed.
And remember, an angel came and got Peter out of prison.
Now, to me, I think it's rather interesting because, see, if that had happened today,
I think too much of the church world would have just organized a protest
in front of the jail.
Now, I'm not opposed to being involved in things.
And I mean, I'm all for that.
We need to not only pray, but we got to do.
But they didn't, that early church, they didn't organize any kind of protest or anything
because Peter was in prison.
They just prayed.
And I don't mean it sounded like it wasn't much because they just did that,
but they prayed.
And Peter was delivered.
It makes tremendous power available.
I remember, this happened to me many, many years ago.
It was during a time of prayer.
And the anointing just came on me to pray.
And so, you know, you begin to pray in that deeper realm of prayer where the Holy Spirit
takes hold together with you.
And all of a sudden I found myself praying for a major corporation in America.
A major corporation.
And I'm not going to tell you who it was.
But a major corporation in America.
And these are the words that come out of my mouth.
It shocked me.
So I was praying in tongues and different things were going on.
And then this came out in English.
And God said that that corporation needed to judge itself.
And if it did not judge itself, it was going to close down.
It was going to fail.
And I heard just a few months after that, that's a whole corporation.
Huge corporation it folded.
Makes tremendous power available.
And here's just some little old farm boy from rural Minnesota praying.
Makes tremendous power available.
But the church is going to have to decide
if we're going to give ourselves to this deeper realm of prayer
so that we can actually usher in the next move of God's Spirit
in these days.
See, God can't do what He wants to do
until we as the Christians, for one, we need to humble ourselves.
And I'll tell you what Pastor was talking about here just a little bit ago was
amazing because we're going to have to forget our petty differences
if we're going to usher in this move of God.
We're going to have to humble ourselves.
We're going to have to come together in a place of unity
and enter into that realm of the spirit in prayer.
And if we do that, it will happen.
We will see a harvest come in.
Now you say, well, are good things happening already?
Yes, there is.
There's good things happening.
But we have not yet got to that place that many of great men and women beforehand,
have prophesied about this last days.
The level of God's presence.
I've heard prophecies talking about how hospitals would just be emptied out
because of the healing power of God.
I've heard prophets talk about, I mean, going way back, and these are trusted people
way back in time that prophesied about these things,
talking about the harvest coming in.
Well, we're seeing some good things happening.
There's a great move of God among the young people again,
which I think is just awesome.
But even if you look at all the good things that are happening on our universities
and so forth and so on, that's only a fraction of the people in the world.
And if we're going to reach this huge harvest,
it's going to take something more.
Amen.
And it's going to take the church today, stepping up to the plate, so to speak,
pray.
And pray till the Holy Spirit takes hold together with you.
And you'll find yourself working in things of the spiritual realm
that sometimes can just kind of boggle your mind.
But the Holy Spirit's using you and it's making tremendous power available.
And things are happening, things are changing.
But it's going to take us.
Because what He does on this earth, He does through us.
And I know some people struggle with that.
Well, you know, God's sovereign, He can do it every once.
Well, He is sovereign.
And what He chose to do was to work through us in His sovereignty.
That's simple.
I didn't.
I didn't make that choice. He did.
It was His sovereignty that made that choice.
So, yes, He is sovereign.
But He works through His body.
That's the way He set it up.
That's the way He wants to work.
And so it's interesting because we find within the scriptures over and over again that there's,
you know, this analogy between the body of Christ and the human body.
You find that in the scriptures.
And you got to realize that, you know, your head
can't do anything without your body.
You don't believe that.
Just tell your head to walk out of here without your body.
It doesn't work.
That's not the way He designed it.
I believe God's getting us ready.
And so where do we go from here?
What does He need from us as a church today?
Here, just, well, around the world,
but if we just talk to the United States of America, what does He need?
He needs people to answer to call the prayer.
That's what He needs.
But too much of the time people think,
well, the Lord doesn't need me.
Well, yes, He does.
Because they hear people say that, well, you know, I need Him,
but He doesn't really need me.
No, He needs me too.
And He needs you.
Because we're His body here in this earth.
And He chose to do it that way.
Then you hear people say, well, God just doesn't use me.
You know, I know this person or that person and God uses them,
but God just never uses me.
Well, first of all, if you're going to be used by God,
you've got to make yourself available.
And then, second, you're going to have to yield to the Holy Spirit
when He's prompting you to pray
and yield to that.
Sometimes, you know, it could be true, I guess.
Sometimes people just aren't walking close enough
in fellowship with the Lord to understand what He's saying.
But we need to walk with Him.
If He gives you burden, prompting, and inward urge to pray,
then yield to it.
Don't... don't brush it off.
Don't override that, prompting.
You ignore Him enough,
and pretty soon you won't be able to hear Him very good no more.
Because the flesh will have gained dominance in your life.
See, too much of the Church,
and I don't want to sound like a downer this morning,
but I'm just trying to tell you best I know how to...
what I believe the Lord sent me here to do.
The trouble with too many Spirit-filled Christians
is they just say a few words in English,
and a few words in tongues, and then that's the end of it.
And then they just leave that place of prayer
and they go on with their day.
And everything else in that day just is so much just
natural thinking, flesh, our minds.
But if we as believers are willing to pray long enough
in tongues, God will begin to use us.
And like I said earlier,
what I'm talking about today,
if we don't learn these things,
and if someone don't start trying to teach us,
then it's going to be lost.
And just what I observe as I travel around,
I think much of it has been lost already.
But truth can always be brought back.
So it doesn't need to be lost forever.
But if we're going to accomplish
the plans and purposes of God in this day and hour,
then it's going to require more and more of His people, us,
to say no to the flesh and spend time praying
out these mysteries, praying in that deeper realm of prayer.
And I believe, and I'll even speak for myself,
see some of us have kind of just touched the edge of that realm.
But yet we're still not experienced
and moving out in the fullness of it.
But we're going to have to learn how to maneuver there.
And that may take a little time for us to learn,
but we're going to have to be willing to do it
and be determined to do it.
Things like that don't always come easy.
And like I pointed out, when we first begin this type of prayer
and is a labor, it's a work.
The flesh is always going to try and hold us back.
And I see so much that I know at this point
in my life, people that I know, younger people,
I have talked to them more about slowing down in life than I ever had before.
Because people have gotten too busy.
And you can get so busy that you don't have time
to give yourself to prayer.
And you can know the Word
and you can be even applying the Word to your life
and speaking the Word.
But you can be so busy that you just miss this whole thing.
But what God wants you to do is give this time in prayer,
learn how to work together with Him
so that we can accomplish His plans and purposes on the earth
like we've never seen before.
I believe we're moving into something.
I believe we're going to answer the call to pray.
I believe we're going to see manifestations
and demonstrations of God's power
like we've never seen in the earth before.
I believe that.
And I believe the church is going to be willing to move out,
learn how to pray in this place,
maneuver in that greater realm of prayer.
And as we do that, we're going to see the fullness of His glory.
I believe it.
That's how it's praying about this morning.
One of the things that the Lord put in my heart
is that some of you, you've done exactly what I talked about.
You've kind of touched that realm of prayer.
But you haven't walked in the fullness of it.
But I believe the Lord put in my heart
and if I'm wrong, Pastor, it can just straighten me out.
But I believe He put in my heart
that I need to offer to you
an opportunity to make a commitment
that says I will take this to the next level.
That's the way I would describe it.
Is that I'm not going to be satisfied just with
experience here that I kind of just barely touched into that realm of prayer.
But I want to move in that deeper realm of prayer.
And you're going to be willing to do that.
You're going to be willing to yield.
You're going to be willing to give the time necessary to do that.
And so, Pastor, you come up and help me.
Come with me.
But as you can tell this morning, to be honest,
I kind of struggled with sharing these things with you.
I just wasn't as comfortable as I normally am.
But it's not about me being comfortable or not.
It's about what God wants.
And I was telling Pastor, even driving over this morning in my vehicle,
I'm still talking to God driving over here this morning and saying, really?
I talked to him that way.
And I said, you really want me to talk about this?
I said, this is a hard thing to really teach
in a public meeting.
But he just confirmed over and over and over again.
Man, it's time, church.
And I'm challenging myself to give more time.
And so, there's so many things that are at stake.
Not only just the entire move of God around the world,
but how it affects you right here at this church.
There needs to be more people that are willing to move into that place
with this deeper realm of prayer in order to bring the past to things
that God wants to do right here at this church.
Because there's not just going to be about things that are done in the natural.
I mean, yes, we do the things that are necessary in the natural.
But we can work together with God
and we can see just tremendous things happen.
Things that we just would think, well, how is he ever going to do this?
How is this ever going to happen? But they happen.
Supernaturally. Amen.
But he needs us to spend that time in prayer.
And so I would like to close out my part here this morning just with this is that
if there's people here that would like to make that commitment that says I will...
I'm committed to go into that deeper realm of prayer.
But don't make it lightly. Don't just come well because, you know,
well, we all should pray more. Well, yeah, we should.
But I mean, you really want to yield to God.
And you want to be used in that way. And it's like Pastor said earlier,
you know, sometimes it's just good to do something.
You know, we could just... I could just exhort you, well, you all do that,
and then we just send you on your way. But sometimes it's good just to really
make a public commitment and say, you know what, I'm going to do this.
And it's really between you and God.
And I don't know, maybe even as the week goes on, maybe let's make that a
practice for this week. Let's spend more time in prayer this week.
It opens heavens. I don't know.
That's... I think I've said all I need to say.
I'm going to ask, we've been here since 10.
I'm going to ask for another 15, 20 minutes because of where we're going to go.
Okay? Can we do that? And then at that point, you know, we're going to go into some Q&A time
because this is one of those subjects that I think would be beneficial to
address from as many angles as we can.
But those of you who are wanting to respond to that invitation
of, okay, I want to go into this. I want to go there.
And those of us that are there and we want to go deeper,
just stand where you're at. I'm going to have Brad pray for you.
Hallelujah. Father, we're so humbled
by the fact that you love us with a love that's never ending
and that you designed in your great plan that you designed for us to be part of you
and that we could work together with you.
And Lord, as I've shared these truths with the people this morning concerning this deeper realm of prayer
and as they stand here at this place committing to spending more time with you, yielding to you
and entering into that deeper realm, learning to maneuver with you in the spiritual realm.
Lord, I pray that you would continue to lead them,
guiding them, strengthening them. Hallelujah.
Yeah. May this day, Lord, be a day of change. May they be able to look back on this day
right here and say, man, have things changed
because they chose to make this commitment.
And I thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You may be seated.